Petit Fours

So this week I decided to make petit fours. I've only made them once before, but they were so nice i thought I'd give them another go.

The recipe is from my cake bible: Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book:



They turned out great, though I may not have been gentle enough when folding as they didn't completely keep their piped shape.




Luckily they were as nice as I remember them. The only problem is that they're so tiny you have to eat 4. Did I say problem, I meant good point!

Easter biscuits

I decided since it was Easter to use some of the biscuit cutters I bought recently.They're German (Empire) biscuits to a recipe from an old cook book:

8 oz (225g) plain flour

4 oz (115g) butter

4 oz (115g) caster sugar

1 egg

1tsp vanilla flavouring

Jam and icing sugar for decoration

You will need 1 large, greased baking tray.

1)Cream the sugar and butter

2)Add in vanilla

3)Stir in flour and mix well

4)Add a little of the beaten egg and knead into a stiff dough. (If it is too dry and won't stick add a tablespoon of water)

5)Roll out to 5mm, or around 1/4 inch on a floured surface, and use cutters.

6)Bake at 160 C or 150 C if fan assisted for 15-20 minutes.

7)When cool, cover half in icing and sandwich layers together with jam.Here's what I came up with:

I used coloured fondant icing to save me making lots of batches of icing.

Don't forget to do two of each if using differently shaped cutters, since they have to sit on top of one another. Also, I found it helpful make one layer of the biscuit face the opposite direction. That way, when they are put together, the bottoms are hidden, making it look neater. It's especially useful if they stick to the baking tray as this can be hidden by the jam!

Happy Easter everyone.

Rubix Cube Cake

These are old photos of a cake I did for an 80's birthday party. Not sure if the colours are right, but it's all I had in the cupboard.

Its two madeira cakes on top of each other. they're actually round ones cut into squares. A bit of a mad way of doing it I know, but I didn't have the deep enough square tins. We got to eat the excess bits though. It's called quailty control :)

By this point I hadn't discovered that you can get coloured fondant, and had to make do with supermarket white, painted with food colouring using a pastry brush. Also, I did each square seperatley, and then joined them together. Can't really remember the reason, possibly to have clear lines between the colours. Don't try this at home, it took ages, and I ended up with rainbow hands!

The black lines are dark chocolate matchmakers,as our local corner shop didn't have licorice laces. (how strange was that?)

A but messy and the icing was quite sickening, but the cake was yummy and looked good in the end.

Sugar Flowers

After my attempt at sugar roses, I invested in some rose petal and blossum cutters, and this is what I came up with:

They're supposed to be daisies, but I think I need more practise!















The others are roses and rosebuds. The cutters were great for this, but they're so fiddly to do! Even still, i couldn't persuade everyone to eat them, they didn't want to ruin them, but I ate mine.

Examples

So, a quick example of what I've been up to.

These are buns for a friend, they're vanilla sponge, dipped in chocolate, with a large fondant star and little stars in the trail. It turned out a bit like a comet with a glittery tail.

These were also in the batch, my first go at bows. I learnt not to leave them before shaping, as the icing goes hard and cracks!

And this is my first attempt at sugar roses.

First post!

Hello all. I've been following some cake blogs online, and thought 'd join the fun. I've been baking for a while, but only recently started getting into decorating and sugarpaste, so bear with me! Looking forward to sharing my cakes.